Five stars. Did I really just say that? Five? Well, I have been trying to find the time to get on here and rave about The Bookseller for a full two weFive stars. Did I really just say that? Five? Well, I have been trying to find the time to get on here and rave about The Bookseller for a full two weeks now and my life has just not afforded me the opportunity. But I am setting aside a small part of my Sunday evening to let the Goodreads world know just how taken I was with this title.

Who among us has not considered the millions of small decisions that are made each day, seemingly without consequence? Yet, occasionally we know that it was a trivial decision that might have lead us to a pivotal episode (or person!) in our lives. How did you meet your spouse? Was it an intentional act, such as signing up for a dating service? Or was it an impulsive decision to drop into a store to pick up an item that lead you to a casual conversation that lead to a date that lead to a marriage? What if you had decided against that errand? Or gone to another store?

Stories of parallel lives or alternate lives or lives on various time lines being told simultaneously always capture my imagination. All of the What Ifs? All of the Do Overs! All of the just misses...or barely made its. These are the dramas that color our existence and make us constantly ponder our decisions and the fates or flukes that lead us to the specific place in the universe that we hold.

I file this book under 'time travel' because the main character Kitty/Katharine is living two different lives on two separate (but near) time lines. Both of her lives are happening in 1962. In one of them...the life that seems substantial and 'real'...she is Kitty Miller, a single woman in her late thirties who runs a book store with her best friend and lives the simple yet unfettered life. Although unlucky in love (her old beau, Kevin, broke things off with her years ago, denying Kitty the chance to be a doctor's wife) --she loves her work at the store, her warm relationship with her parents and her sister-like connection to her friend and business partner, Frieda Green. Kitty does not miss her former career as a teacher, but enjoys tutoring the boy next door. She loves riding her bike to work, spending time among books and music at the shop, hanging out with Frieda discussing literature, having a casual social life, and living life on her own terms.

But when she gets home at night, to the cozy apartment she loves, Kitty can no longer sleep. Each night she slips into a dream world -- a dream world that becomes more and more vivid and 'real' with each passing episode. In this dream world, she is Katharine...married to a lovely man named Lars. Oddly enough "Lars" made a real but fleeting appearance in Kitty's life, when he contacted her for a blind date and then stood her up. Kitty had been disappointed and somewhat depressed by this slight because she and Lars had shared an enjoyable phone conversation and seemingly had made a connection. Still, as Kitty, she has never seen or heard from Lars again.

Yet in her dream world he is real...he is an adoring (and successful) spouse. He is also a devoted and patient father to the three children Katharine and Lars have had together. Two of the children, Missy and Mitch are right out of a dream --healthy, well adjusted and adorable boy and girl twins. The third child -- the triplet -- is Michael. Michael is autistic and proves to be an emotional and physical drain on Katharine. Michael's problems and Katharine's difficulties in connecting with him as a mother mar this dream world.

After a few early dreams, which are mainly delightful and pleasant All American Family/Post War Good Life vignettes, the dream world begins to reveal darker and darker moments for Katharine. Kitty, meanwhile, awakens each morning from these inexplicable dreams, from which she can find no escape, and finds herself to be more and more exhausted by them. No longer fantasies or flights of fancy, these dreams threaten to erode at Kitty's sanity and her relationships with those around her. Soon enough she can barely distinguish reality from fiction.

The Bookseller is simply great fun to read! There are elements of chick lit/romance/fantasy to the plot. However, read on and discover the layers. It goes deeper and the reader is in for some surprises. Parts of this plot really hit me where I live right now. I found it to be somewhat of a happy coincidence that I picked up this title at the moment when I did. Although other readers may not be as affected, personally, by one of the plot points, I recommend this title as one that would hold much appeal to female readers who enjoy a non-stupid romance plot, some time travel and fantasy elements and also some darker story arcs. Fans of the Time Traveller's Wife might want to give this one a go.

First caveat: I LOVE a time travel story...as long as the characters travel mainly to the past. It is almost impossible to ruin a time travel story foFirst caveat: I LOVE a time travel story...as long as the characters travel mainly to the past. It is almost impossible to ruin a time travel story for me. I am far too obsessed with/interested in the past and the way the world used to look for my own good. I could literally spend days looking at old photographs and poring through 70 year old city directories. (And I DO, people. I honestly do. This is how I spend my five minutes of spare time each week.)

Second caveat: I really really enjoy Andrew Sean Greer. His quiet yet compelling manner of telling a little story about realish seeming people in different eras and milieus just grabs me. He seems to write down the thoughts that go through my head. But he does it in the manner of a gifted writer rather than in the random way that my own little internal stories and day dreams pass through my mind.

So when I learned about THIS book? I got very excited!

And I was not disappointed. Greta Wells lives three impossible lives. All of her lives are lived in the same New York building. In all of her lives she is surrounded by the same primary people: her lover/husband, Nathan; her Auntie Mame-ish Aunt Ruth; and her beloved twin brother, Felix. We first meet Greta and Felix in 1985. This is the height of the AIDS epidemic and the disease has hit Felix and his friends very hard. Felix makes a brief appearance in 1985 and then succumbs to his symptoms. His lover, Alan, is also close to Greta and also has AIDS. Meanwhile, Nathan, who has been with Greta for 10 years, meets another woman, embarks on an affair and eventually leaves Greta. Greta is deeply depressed about her year of acute loss and agrees to electroshock treatment. The treatments are administered once a week and they set her off on a cycle of time travel.

(I know this probably sounds way too implausible...but it works if you enjoy time travel conceits.)

Greta emerges in two other time streams. In 1941 she is married to Nathan, but Ruth has been killed in a car accident. The 1942 Greta was responsible for this accident and is suffering from her own depression due to her guilt and grieving over the loss of Ruth. In 1941 Greta and Nathan have a son, also called Felix. Greta's twin, Felix, is alive in 1942. He is closeted and planning to marry a woman from a prominent family. Alan is Felix's friend and attorney but Greta is certain that both men would like to have something deeper together. The era, however, makes this difficult.

The third Greta lives in 1918. Felix is alive and also lives a closeted life because of his environment. It is much more dangerous to be identified as gay. She is married to Nathan in this time stream as well. As in 1941, Nathan is a military doctor. In 1941, Nathan is preparing for duty. 1918 Nathan is returning from war. 1918 Nathan has also betrayed his Greta with another woman, but they are still together. However, 1985 Greta learns that her WWI era counterpart has a lover of her own in this time stream -- a young man named Leo. This Greta is torn between her lover and her husband and it is causing her own emotional unbalance.

Therefore, all of the Gretas are going through the shock treatments (of their respective eras). They rotate throughout one another's lives attempting to 'fix' each others problems and to return to the life of their choosing with all of the elements in place...A dead brother brought back to life; a marriage put right; a lover regained. Isn't there a way for everyone to live their 'best' life?

When I read a time travel story I am mainly intrigued by what compels the author to explore this theme. The motivation often comes through in the writing as the character is plunked down in an era remote from their own. Often these passages are the most evocative parts of the story -- when the author puts down what must be his/her own ideas about what they would be thinking in this impossible, yet tantalizing, situation. Here is a passage from Greer that I simply loved:

"What was most wonderful about my journeys, I now believe, was that I alone could appreciate the beauty of those worlds. None of the ordinary people in 1918 found the flickering gaslight quaint or beautiful, or saw the old Dutch market houses as anything but eyesores; to them, the world was both falling apart and coming together all too much. In 1941, as well, for those people it was all too modern and too old. The old billboards and funny metal sounds of life, the way the women flounced their skirts, and how men were always removing and replacing their hats, things that are gone forever; it was nothing to them. I was that visitor who comes to a country and finds it charming and ridiculous all at once. Why would anyone wear those hats? Those skirts? And why have we lost the simple decency of saying hello to strangers on the street? But to those who lived in those times, of course, none of it seemed strange. It was ordinary life, with all its troubles, and only when they were jolted off the rails for an instant did they see how odd, how beautiful, everything around them was. Jolted by love or death. They would never consider that it might disappear, or that they might one day miss the quiet Fifth Avenue snowfall that slowed their Model T, or the awful smell of oyster shells and horse manure, or the green el trains that blocked their window view. I was the only one who knew what would be lost."

And then there is the other great ethical plight of the time traveller. When can one interfere with the random caprice of a life and the larger social structure and time period that frames that life?

This passage also got me to thinking the thoughts I like to dwell upon sometimes when I am wool gathering:

"I knew that not all lives are equal, that the time we live in affects the person we are, more than I had ever thought. Some have a harder chance. Some get no chance at all. With great sadness, I saw so many people born in the wrong time to be happy."

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is a recommended read for devotees of time travel fiction. The three story lines fold in upon one another neatly and there is a nice balance between the bitter and the sweet. I continue to love this author and cannot wait to see what he has in store next.

One of my fonder memories of growing up in the Redneck Sleepy Hollow was the sometimes lonely walk up my street in the autumn when the leaves of the tOne of my fonder memories of growing up in the Redneck Sleepy Hollow was the sometimes lonely walk up my street in the autumn when the leaves of the thousands of trees that surrounded it were in full regalia but the sky was darkening and bleak. It was both beautiful and terrifying. Being morbid I would often consider the fact that just about anyone could be watching me from behind one of those big old growth trees. If they ever decided to do more than watch...who would see or hear? For whatever reason (probably youthful stupidity) -- this feeling was more drama than fear. Sometimes I would merely enjoy the silence and the view. Other times I would think about a character in one of the era's horror movies (Halloween comes to mind) or I would think about Stephen King.

Because Stephen King has a way with small towns. He loves them...the reader can tell. His small town characters are almost schmaltz. They can be such salt-of-the-earth heroes that they are about as believable as a Frank Capra movie. Still, it is nice. Stephen King needs to craft the amazingly good because he counters it with the rot of the evil. Being me, it is the Bad Small Town that has always captured my imagination.

In my case, I lived in the Bad Small Town. Oh...not like Derry, Maine. There were no clown ghouls pulling children down into drains below. Just an ill match for me. As the race riots and the escalating crime of Cleveland's more urban east side neighborhoods ushered in the seventies my parents decided that it would be good for the family to pack up and move farther out to a bucolic little crossroads on the county line. Hoping for Mayberry we ended up in Dogpatch-- just about the time it was scheduled for a head on collision with New Money.

Not having the bank for one of the faux colonials in the upstart developments we landed on a little street in Old Dogpatch instead. Our neighbors were a collection right out of Stephen King's plot lines. One neighbors son was a charismatic little imp of a five-year-old who broke into our house our first morning there. My mother found him sitting in our kitchen eating our cereal when she came in to fix her morning coffee. His dad was a drunk and his older brother was already in jail. This kid had a big heart. He occasionally shielded me from a neighborhood ass kicking. And, even at age five, he was considerate enough to take his pilfered smokes outside.

The family next door was a veritable Peyton Place. Mom stumbled around the yard with her wine glass by 3:30 in the afternoon. The two younger boys heaved rocks from the driveway at one another's heads with the dim purpose of what country folk call 'eejits". The oldest son was a terrifying hulk with absolutely nothing going on behind his eyes. One day those boys burned a cat to death for sport. Other days were more light hearted. My father was grotesquely fascinated by these 'cretins'. He would occasionally sit with his glass of iced tea in a lawn chair and simply watch...transfixed by their actions. We invented Reality TV back in 1971. We just did not know it.

Finally, one Saturday afternoon my mom, my sister and I came back from a trip to civilisation (the mall located a good 25 minute drive from our house.) "Lock the door!" was my dad's greeting. "That imbecile next door has finally gone stark raving mad. I watched the whole thing! He's running around the woods right now (located behind all of our houses there in Sleepy Hollow) -- screaming and waving an axe!! He thinks the trees are after him." Axe man vanished for awhile. Came back. And blessedly moved away with the rest of the clan late one night without warning...but only after chucking an actual porcelain dinner plate with his half eaten dinner on it into our yard as a parting shot. Five minutes after they pulled out of our life forever, their eyeball searing garage light, which had shined steadily and directly into my parent's bedroom window for the past eight years like some malevolent alien eye, burned out. Exit stage left.

You really can't make this shit up. And thus was life.

I left as soon as I decently could. Nobody in my family questioned why! But I would return at college breaks and then later...after I moved farther into the city, to visit my parents. It was on one of these visits that I had my very own Bad Small Town encounter with a mob of high school kids in the local McDonalds. They did not like me. They did not like my clothing. They did not like my friends. So they surrounded us and started to harass us en masse. Well into my twenties and sporting a new City Mouth I couldn't believe this shit. So I told off the ring leader and marched up to the counter to demand some action from the weary woman at the cash register. In true Derry, Maine form she told me "There's nothing I can do about it. One of them is my son." Incredulous I told my friends that we were going to go visit Barney Fife up the street and file a police report. The Mob followed us into the parking lot and blocked our car. Eventually they grew tired of the abuse and moved on to terrorise another day. It was near midnight when we entered the police station in my 'home town'. Where we were laughed out the door by Officer Fife. Apparently he didn't care much for me either.

Casual malice...condoned (or at least unchecked) by authority. This was the modus operandi in my little burg. I think Stephen King understands that this happens.

So when I read Stephen King as a young teen it was certainly for his signature brand of Name Brand Normal terror. He could unearth the nightmare that lurked just behind the most mundane of surfaces. But I also loved his early stuff for his towns. To this day I am a sucker for the collision of the decent with the twisted in small town life. I love Rod Serling for this. I love David Lynch when he works with this theme. And I love and miss vintage Stephen King.

I can say with no small amount of pleasure that, although King has taken a departure with 11/22/63 into a saga of time travel and historical fiction, he has also remained true to the best of his roots. In this new novel he has returned to Derry...a town who's chilling grip has not let go of me since I last ventured into it back in grad school while reading It. King has balanced the scale through the creation of the Good Small Town of Jodie, Texas. These towns play off of one another throughout the book like two sides of a mirror. (We all have a dark side somewhere, right?)

I am further in love with the time travel element. Time travel fascinates me and when it is done well it makes for some of the most compelling reading I ever experience. As many readers are already aware, King has created a story in which the protagonist accepts a challenge from a dying friend to make a trip back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. In the tradition of a good time travel story, we meet characters, learn their motivations and ponder their future acts for good or for ill. Why does history unfold as it does? Can it be changed? Should it be? Thus the gauntlet is thrown for a page turning extravaganza that is Yes: over the top in places and Yes: implausible in many ways and Yes: descends into King Schmaltz from time to time. But it is Stephen King placing characters in poisonous environments (because the Big D has a malevolent personality too) of varying kinds and letting them loose to see what they can do.

There is a car. There is a dame. There is a hero of sorts. There are the usual sages and sad sacks and vicious small town prudes. There is horror. But there is really more tragedy here. Enjoy the ride. This is very entertaining reading.

As a lifelong resident of Northeast Ohio, I have lived in 4 specific places since graduate school. These locales are as follows: Kent (home of Kent StAs a lifelong resident of Northeast Ohio, I have lived in 4 specific places since graduate school. These locales are as follows: Kent (home of Kent State University, infamous for May 4th, 1970); Cleveland Heights (specifically the neighborhood around Coventry Road, a boho/arts district); the Merriman Valley in Akron (a bucolic, rolling and foliage dense area west of the city); and Lakewood (a fairly unique little city within the city perched on Lake Erie.)

WHY would the reader care where This Reviewer has lived? -- Just read this mind fuck of a book and note the specific locations where the primary action takes place. It was way too easy for me to plug myself into the scenes. The first half of this book was genuinely scary (for me). The second half just got a little crazy. But I am going to say that I am ok with that. It took me on a mind bender when I needed one. I went along for the ride and I accepted the abrupt change in style. As other reviewers have commented, I cannot get into the specifics about this abrupt change. It would be too big of a reveal. -- I will say that I think it was a gamble on the author's part. People are going to invest heavily into the first segment and then the rug is going to get pulled right out from under them. And then some of the readers are going to get pissed off.

But I decided to read The Man from Primrose Lane as two separate stories, bound together by the same characters. Both stories were gripping. Both stories wove a series of terrible events into settings that are both familiar and banal for me. I could look out my window (or picture myself looking out of other windows in other places I called home over the years) and see, in my mind's eye, just where and how these terrible things could come to pass. I don't think you need to be an Akron or Cleveland native to get the spooks with this book. But it certainly doesn't hurt.

I didn't know much about the plot before I read it. I am glad I did not. For one thing, I have a daughter and I generally stay away from crime or horror fiction where horrific things happen to children -- especially girls. This kind of thing is so genuinely terrifying to me that I avoid it point blank. I stick with paranormal or gothic type horror (where the chills feel mainly fictional) and murder mysteries where the victims are adults. This plot does involve the abduction, abuse and murder of young girls and some of the scenes were difficult for me. (But these scenes did not overwhelm the plot. Enough detail was given to drive the story...but more time was taken with the motivations of the characters -- Primarily protagonist, David Neff -- who were in it to stop these outrages from occurring.)

Secondly, the Big Plot Twist: It would not have turned me off if I had known about it ahead of time. It would have probably intrigued me even more. However, I am glad that I happened upon it with no warning -- just like the night I sat in the movie theatre watching Sixth Sense and blurted out 'OMG! He's DEAD'! That WTF moment is so much fun...and it doesn't happen that often....more

1. Today's title is chick lit. In my universe chick lit gets graded on a curve. I go eThis review requires disclaimers. Let's get them out of the way.

1. Today's title is chick lit. In my universe chick lit gets graded on a curve. I go easier on this genre because I want to read it once or, perhaps, twice a year when the right cover-hook-mood strikes. Generally I am going out of my mind in real life and need some brain mush. This is not to say that all Chick Lit is created equal (read: mediocre pablum); some of it is quite witty and entertaining -- almost therapeutic to read when you are running zero to crazy in 60 seconds.

2. Today's title deals with time travel. I am such a sucker for time travel that I will read almost anything that touches on it. Just being about time travel is generally enough to get a book 2 stars on my rating chart. As long as the story is comprehensible and written in English I am apt to give it at least one more.

3. I am a Crank who honestly believes that I was not only born in the wrong location...but, also the wrong time period. In the 21st century I am just another wage slave attempting to function in the ever-changing world of whatever. In the middle of the 20th century, I would have been considered 'brainy' just because I have a high school diploma (not to mention a college one...or two...), weak eyes and small bazooms. Yes, I dream of being Marilyn Monroe's 'brainy' room-mate...

I Went to Vassar for This? cannot be mistaken for a great work of fiction. It is the literary equivalent of a summer pop tune that isn't really that good...but it is fun and catchy and gets stuck in your head and it reminds you of some great parties or your last real vacation. You just have to admit you like it even though you know it is never going to be a critic's darling.

Our heroine, Cathy Voorhees, is a young Manhattanite on the make...clawing her way up in the advertising game and loving every minute of it. The first chapter makes it clear that she is a self confident careerist but slack in her personal life. (A slob who seems to have no life outside her job.) In the early portion of the book, set in contemporary New York, Cathy is taken down more than a few pegs by her aged boss, Mr. Richmond. Richmond is not a fan of Cathy's in-your-face post modern/sarcasm laden ad pitches. When Cathy's big presentation flops with the Big Kahuna Client, Cathy is unceremoniously fired.

Arriving back at her apartment in a rage of disbelief and already plotting her comeback, Cathy decides to nuke one of her single-gal frozen dinners. A mishap occurs with the microwave, disbelief is suspended on all sides, and Cathy 'comes to' later in ANOTHER Cathy's apartment: Cathy Voight, denizen of New York City. 1959.

From here Cathy V. gets on the usual carnival ride of anachronism -- a character misplaced in time attempting to fool those around her, to fit in just enough to avoid the mental institution, and to find her way back to her own time. Along the way she picks up some clues about the other Cathy, whose life she is now living. This other Cathy V. is also a shrewd business woman -- in this case, the author of cook books. Cathy Voight also has secrets and is revealed to be a not-so-very nice person.

Both Cathys are hard to like. The time travelling Cathy Voorhees is just plain silly at times. Her lack of knowledge about history is especially painful to read...although I realise that it is meant to be humorous. (Lance Armstrong as the first man to walk on the moon? Yes, this is the name she dredges up for her incredulous 1950s audience. By her own admission, the only classes Cathy ever stayed awake for were her business courses.)

Still, I enjoyed the conceit. I spend enough time toying around in my head with just these sorts of fantasies. What if I could travel back in time? What decade would I visit? Wouldn't it be fantastic to wear those stunning clothes? Wouldn't it almost bring me to tears to turn on the radio and hear Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole and early Sinatra...and not one damned autotune anywhere on the dial?

An effort is made to also deal with what sucked about life in the 1950s. In Your Face racism and anti-Semitism anyone? This book has that covered. It is the one area where silly Cathy redeems herself and acts like a grown up and together woman who can't believe the grab-assing, the snobbery, the exclusion and the deeply closeted gay-ness that went down in the decade of Winstons and Jello-With-Vegetables.

Of course there is romance. It is Chick Lit. Read this one in your most comfy pair of flannel pjs this winter while chowing on some good quality chocolate. If you are a woman in 21st century America and you actually find the time to read, you probably need that sort of break.

I unapologetically love this book. And it has nothing to do with Somewhere In Time. I saw the movie when I was young, thought it was ok...but am not fI unapologetically love this book. And it has nothing to do with Somewhere In Time. I saw the movie when I was young, thought it was ok...but am not fanatical about it. But this little book? I AM in love with it.

This is a simple story. The narrator is shown a very basic way to slip back in time. Anyone who has ever dreamt of doing this owes themself the pleasure of Time and Again. Reading it makes a rational person want to immerse themself in a forgotten relic of the past...an old building that has somehow escaped the wrecking crew, the corner of an overgrown graveyard, or an unspoiled covered bridge -- anyplace that has not been despoiled by the modern age -- and will themself back across the ages.

And ah! The description! I think the author spent a fair amount of time gazing into old photos and attempted to enter them mentally. I have spent my lifetime in this same fruitless (but somehow enjoyable) exercise, pouring over sepia photos of cities and people and events. Reading this book was my most successful trip to date. The text is accompanied by old photo illustrations. And Finney's narrative makes them come alive again.

I don't know why I am reluctant to give up on the past. What is gone is gone, they say. But, for anyone who is not so sure of this...treat yourself to Jack Finney.

I'll preface this by stating that I believe I am a fairly rational person. I have been labeled eccentric but I have never been a fantasist. Although uI'll preface this by stating that I believe I am a fairly rational person. I have been labeled eccentric but I have never been a fantasist. Although unexplained phenomena intrigue me, I generally feel there is a logical explanation for things. And I have had very few personal experiences that qualify in any way as paranormal. Mine has been a reasonable little life generally devoid of intrigue. Perhaps this is why I read so much...to find the drama elsewhere.

Now that I have given the disclaimer, I will also admit to a weakness for the concept of time travel. I am one of those people who should probably have been born about 50 years earlier than I was. I have always felt just a little out of step. Unfortunately, I have not been able to uncover too many quality time travel titles. When the Time Traveler's Wife was published amidst a clamor of applause and accolades, I was very eager to read it. And it did not disappoint me.

The central theme of a bond between two individuals being so enduring that it can transcend time and space is an amazingly romantic and comforting conceit. It pushes aside the boundaries of life's linear progression. It provides second chances. It tantalizes the reader with possibilities. Obviously, this novel was right down my alley. I was a complete sucker for Henry and Claire's romance. And I was gratified by the writing style. I never felt as if I was delving into Harlequin Romance territory. Although the novel was, basically, a great love story...it was also much more.

I'll wrap this with a story--something that happened to my husband about a year before I met him.

He was leaving work one evening (we met on a job). The parking lot there had blind spots because of some overgrown hedges around the perimeter of the building. My husband saw nobody as he took a step out of the lot onto the sidewalk (he lived nearby and walked to work). As he took that step, two things happened simultaneously: a car careened out of nowhere directly toward him going too fast to stop before hitting him...and a hand reached out and pulled him out of the path of this car with seconds to spare.

My husband was shocked on a variety of levels. He had not seen the car at all. If it had hit him, he would have been very seriously injured, or perhaps, dead. Of coarse cars do come out of nowhere. People drive too fast and he would not have noticed someone sitting in the parking lot getting ready to drive out, or someone cutting through the lot from the side street on the other side of the building.

But why didn't he see the person who saved him before she suddenly appeared directly behind him at the crucial moment? Still a bit shaken, my future husband turned to the young woman and thanked her. At the time, my husband was only about 21 years old and he seemed to be talking to a peer. His rescuer was tall with long brown and slightly wavy hair.

She smiled at him and said, "I'm your daughter. I only came back to do this." Then she turned and ran to the end of the block and around the corner to the busy street there. My husband was further unnerved by what she had said. He called out to her to wait...but she was gone in an instant.

After we met and began telling each other the stories of our lives, he told me what had happened. Ever the pragmatist, I told him: "I want to believe...but it was just a hippie chick who took some Ex and read too much Deepak Chopra." "Yeah," said the guy who would eventually be my spouse..."that's probably about right."

About 12 years later, our daughter was born. (Everyone from relatives and friends to nosy and intrusive strangers told me I was going to have a boy. We irritated everyone by waiting to be surprised.) She is almost 4 now and is a brown eyed beauty with long brown hair. Somehow, she acquired some curl at the ends (although this does not come from her poker haired mother.) She is also a Daddy's Girl. My daughter loves me and we spend the bulk of our time together as I am not at work right now. We are close and I am satisfied with our bond. However, I watch the way she is with my husband and I think...there is something very special there.

I'm not saying anything here! But I do know my little girl would already do just about anything for her dad...and she is interested in being a super-hero like Wonder Woman. So, who knows?